Run Like Hell
by wehad-adventures
Summary: "You don't have to do this, Miss Venturi." But in the end, maybe she did. Rated M for language and possible future scenarios.
1. Chapter One: The Start

**Okay, first chapter here. I imagine there will eventually be some sort of romance, because that's how things _always _end up, even if I try to avoid it... I'm just not sure who Shiloh would end up with. I'm hoping that will become more apparent as I get the characters more fleshed out and such. Do leave reviews, as what you have to say _does _help me figure things out, gives me a bit of direction, you know. I'm aware of the awkward tenses, as well - I switched around a bit and didn't realize it until later on. I'll fix that sooner or later (hopefully by tomorrow, but who knows).**

**This is, uh, my first foray into any sort of X-Men fanfiction, so I'm hoping it isn't terrible, and Shiloh doesn't come off too... Mary-Sue. If she does, I trust that you guys'll let me know, tell me what to change about her to fix that. And though I'd rather not, starting next chapter, I'm going to ask for five reviews before the next update. Tell me what you like. Tell me what you hate. Tell me who you want to see Shiloh with. Tell me what could be improved. Give me some feedback, folks.**

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><p><em>Run<em>,_ run, run. Can't get caught, can't go down now. _Warnings flashing behind the thin veil of her eyelids every time she blinks, Shiloh pushes herself on, forcing herself to ignore just how much it feels like acid is pumping through her veins. She can hear her heartbeat thundering, the blood pulsing fast in her ears, so loud that even the slapping of her grungy black All-Stars slapping against the pavement is drowned out. What she's done to deserve the chase (aside from having tits, she'd wager that's a good portion of the reason), but she certainly isn't grateful for the feeling as her lungs ache and the muscles in her legs continue to burn. For roughly ten minutes now, she's been running – that bit was, she supposed, vaguely her fault. It hadn't seemed like a bad idea when she'd agreed to meet her best friend Dawn in this part of town with some nameless faceless stranger because **what was the worst that could happen**? Maybe the man chasing her was who she'd been meant to meet when she found Dawn, which was possible since she hadn't ever made it that far before someone had started giving chase, offering no reassuring words or shouts to let her know that he was anything other than dangerous, but she didn't think so. Dawn was too fragile, frightened, _human_, to spend time with someone so gruff. Shiloh was the most dangerous the frail little blonde got with her friends, and she didn't even _know_ that. Either way, this had all started because she'd agreed to meet in a shit part of town, and had thought to take a shortcut through and even shittier part of town, the area filled with burnt-out skeletons of factories and old, long abandoned warehouses.

She can hear heavy footsteps picking up the pace behind her, and only just fights the urge to just give up now and curl in on herself, sobbing and waiting for the worst to be over. She pushes herself until she finally can't go anymore, until her legs finally give out beneath her and she collapses in the hollow shell of what looks like an old textiles factory. The gritty cement flooring scrapes at her knees through her thrift store blue jeans, cuts up her palms, makes her winces and gasp. She swears loudly, hears a chuckle that sounds **just this side **of completely nonthreatening and the crunch of rocks and dirt beneath heavy feet.

"Go 'head, sweetheart. Keep on runnin'; I kinda like the chase."

Shiloh's head snaps up at that, jaw set, eyes narrowed now that her would-be captor is in sight. Tall, taller than her 5'6" frame by a half foot, at the least; broad shouldered and thickly muscled, though the muscles are clearly the product of much work that hasn't been done in a couple of months – flab is starting to take place of the muscle at the man's belly; the eyes are dark, would be warm if it weren't for the situation, she imagines. She decides she doesn't like him, then and there; he looks like a family man who lost too much and turned out wrong as a result. This single glance has told her that it's now or never, tells her that if she doesn't take the chance now, she's dead and gone and **violated**. The confidence and sick amusement are rolling off the bastard in waves, she can practically **see **them, as well as feel them. It's easy enough to tell that he's not expecting anything strange from the five foot six girl with the deep brown hair and intense green eyes. She can't say that she blames him for that. She doesn't really look like much: standing at just barely 5'6", her hair a deep, glossy chocolate that falls to her shoulder blades in waves and green eyes that are just big enough in her face to lend the illusion of innocence. On top of that, she's slim, modestly curved – nothing that suggests any muscle mass or _mutations_.

In this moment, she finds that she is immensely grateful for that fact. Nobody sees her and thinks '_freak'_; nobody sees her and thinks '_threat_'. If they knew what she was – an electrokinetic with an empathic ability that is underdeveloped to the point where she's not sure if she's actually an empath or just particularly skilled at reading how people feel and empathizing with them, because she's always tried _not _to use her gifts. If the people in this podunk little shithole of a town she lives in knew what she was, she'd be pushed out, mocked and _hurt_. It's hard enough having to deal with hiding something she wasn't ashamed of – all of the repercussions of people finding out, the fact that people she's grown up with would probably be trying to have her killed or locked up… That hurt.

"Oh, you like the chase, huh? Like to feel like the predator to someone's prey? Make you feel like a man, a real one, huh?" she mocked, rolling her eyes as she pushed herself up to stand on somewhat shaky legs, pushing her lips into a pout. "Well, newsflash, **sweetheart**, you ain't the predator here. I was hoping to avoid this, but…" Using the more '**extreme**' of her abilities was always a last resort – she was hoping that a bit of a show would make this guy chicken out, bail. She snaps, grins crookedly at the bright spark and crackle of electricity starting in her palm and racing out over her fingers, at the somewhat frightened look on the man's face. He clearly thinks this is a fluke or _something_, because he doesn't back away or run. _Damn it_. She snaps again, and this time, there's a brighter flash of light, a sharper crack accompanying the electricity as it arcs just above her fingers when she lifts her hand up to wriggle those fingers in a wave.

"Go on, _sweetheart_, I know you wanna run," she purrs, smirking. The snapping isn't the most intimidating way of showing off, but it is the simplest, no clapping or grand hand gestures, no extreme loss of temper, no overflow of emotions. None of those things are really necessary anyhow – she can just _think _about it and it's done. The hand motions she sometimes makes are fun, though, and she feels like it's much easier to direct the electricity if she can visualize it, watch it follow her arm. Electricity isn't really something that's easily controlled, she thinks, especially when you have only a vague control over it because you try to avoid the use of your powers. She doesn't want to be stuck in this town if people find out about her abilities, because then she'd be stuck somewhere where at least fifty percent of the population hated you, something like thirty-five percent wanted you dead, and the last fifteen had no problem with you, but no plans to speak up. So far, only her family knows about the abilities, and even then, they only know about the electricity, because she's convinced that the less they know, they safer they'll be.

"What, are you scared? Scared you're gonna get your ass _zapped_, by a little girl?" Okay, so she's just cleared nineteen at her last birthday, roughly two months ago, but she's still little in comparison, right? The brunette resists the urge to let out a sharp bark of laughter brought on by this strange bought of confidence. "It's okay if you are, you know. I _totally _understand, _sweetheart_." Her thought is punctuated by a loud crack of electricity as it dances at her fingertips. Really, she'd prefer not to use her 'powers', as her big brother Tristan called them, but since this guy has yet to turn tail and run, she figures she can assume there's no other way.

It's then that Shiloh hears a voice ringing clear in her mind, unfamiliar, male and vaguely European. (**You don't have to do this, Miss Venturi**). She freezes, resists the urge to spin around and search for the source of the voice, knows he must be close – or very powerful, if he's managed to get into her head from a large distance.

(**Hate to break it to you, fella,**), she thinks back at the voice, resisting the urge to roll her eyes, (**but this if a bit of intimidation hasn't scared this guy off, pretty sure that I **_**do **_**have to do this**). She feels stupid, thinking at a voice in her head, but she's always assumed that if there's someone like _her_, who can control electricity and feel what other people do, there'd have to be telepaths, or whatever it is that they're called. (**Unless you've got a different plan, in which case, by all means, brainiac, take over**). It's rude, she knows that, but she's a little bit on edge, cornered and forced into using her powers, and talking to a voice in her head all combined.

(**Then do take a step back, please, Miss Venturi, and I'll be all too glad to step in**).

Brow furrowed, unsure if the 'take a step back' was a literal thing or not, she does as told, looking confused as she does so. The electricity is still sparking at her fingertips, but now, even slightly calmer than before, she can hear more footsteps behind her now, feel vague bits of amusement and something like irritation as two new people step into her sight, one staying to her left and the other approaching the man who'd chased her down, speaking softly. He doesn't sound or look particularly threatening, so she can only assume he's using his telepathy to convince that goon to leave – thank fuck, honestly. When the newcomer returns, she gets a good look at him: about her height, give or take an inch, dark hair and brilliantly blue eyes. His counterpart is something like half a foot taller than the both of them, with short brown hair and eyes that she can't quite determine the colour of – he's definitely the one who's less than pleased to be here.

"Uh, thanks for getting rid of that asshole, but, uh… Who the hell are you two, exactly?"

The taller of the two looks amused, though he has the decency to hide his small smile when the other one turns to glare at him. "I am Charles Xavier; this is Erik Lensherr. We are… Like you, in a sense."

Shiloh snorts. "In a sense, alright." She turns her eyes to the taller one – _Erik,_ she reminds herself – and quirks a brow. "So, he's telepathic, what can _you_ do?" Normally, she'd probably be a little less rude, but tensions are still high – for her, at least – and dammit, 'saviours' or not, she knows nothing about these two but their names. She gets no verbal answer from him; she does, however, get a smirk and a darting of eyes towards a metal beam that goes from straight to crumpled and twisted in a matter of seconds. Half nodding, she grins. "Alright, alright. Neat trick there, buddy." A heavy sigh falls from her lips then, and she turns serious, pushing a hand through her hair nervously. "So, what exactly do you want from me? I figure it's safe to assume you want something, if you came all the way _out here_ to save me."

Charles cracks a smile, one that she finds contagious enough that she actually has to fight the urge to smile herself. "Ah, yes, well… We are recruiting, I suppose you could say. There's a steadily growing group of those like us – currently, they're waiting on us to return, at our… Base. We'd be delighted if you would come with us."

It really is a difficult decision, she finds – much as she'd rather get the hell out of this town and away from everyone in it, there's her family to worry about, and schooling… Hell, she wasn't planning on going to college anyways. "We'll need to stop by my house, get some things, tell my parents I'm going."

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><p>Three hours later and she's packed everything she deemed necessary and anything with serious sentimental value, managing to fit it all into two duffel bags and small backpack that she has thrown over her shoulder. She's said her teary goodbyes, promised that she'll keep in touch, call when she has time, write if she can get the chance. Charles is nothing but charming – Shiloh's pretty sure <em>he's <em>the only reason her mother didn't make a big deal about her leaving, because if it had been Erik doing most of the talking, she'd probably have ended up chained to the beams on the back porch until those two were out of town.

"I've never been away from home," she admits quietly, once they're tucked away in the car Charles had clearly driven there, and have been in said car for a couple of hours. The car isn't even a rental – he's driven it all the way to California from wherever the hell this base of theirs is (apparently, it's CIA, lent to them, more or less, which she thinks is weird but doesn't bother to comment on). "At least not far. I went to summer camp in year seven, but that was only a couple of hours away."

From the driver's seat, Charles offers a somewhat comforting, "It isn't so bad, really. Most of the other mutants there, they're your age or thereabouts. You'll make friends – with Raven at the very least. She'll be thrilled there's another girl."

"Raven?"

"My… Sister." There's something about his tone that says they aren't really related, but it's easier to explain it that way. She nods, knowing he can see her in the rearview. "With you, that little group will finally be equal – girls have been outnumbered the whole time, and I've gotten a right earful about it every time Erik and I have left to go find more of us."

Chuckling, Shiloh pulls her knees up so she can sit cross-legged in her seat. "Ah, she's younger then." It's just a guess that she's hazarding, but she remembers giving Tristan hell when she was ten and he was sixteen, because all his friends were boys, and she just wanted to be able to talk to some of themso could he please get some female friends please, it's not like girls have _cooties_. "I was the same way with my brother," she explained with a grin, and she resisted the urge to let that grin widen when Erik grew irritated with her speaking. Clearly, he was a man of few words and wished that others were as well.

"You would be correct in those assumptions, my dear." For a moment, she's surprised, but then she remembers what Charles can do and simply shakes her head. It doesn't bother her, not yet, and she doesn't know if it ever actually _will_, because, truth be told, Charles kind of reminds her of Tristan – warm and caring and intelligent, though Tristan tried to pretend that he was nothing like that, tried to pretend he was hard and uncaring. It never worked.

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><p>She woke who knows how many hours later, the sun in her face through the window. She had no clue where they were, or how long they'd been driving now, but she did know that Charles was currently dozing in the passenger seat, leaving Erik to drive. After opening her mouth to speak, ask where they were, and only emitting a string of strange noises, she rubbed at her eyes, yawned widely, and tried again.<p>

"Where are we? How much further?"

Erik didn't answer her at first, and she thought he was going to ignore her – wouldn't have been surprised by it, really. When he finally did answer, it startled her. "Another eight hours or so."

She assumed they'd been driving all night – Erik looks like he may have napped until Charles was too tired to continue driving himself, but had refused to wake anyone so he can sleep again. She rubbed at her eyes one more time, nodded to herself. "You tired? I can drive, if you want." When she got a gruff 'no' and a distrustful look in the rearview, she shrugged and settled more comfortably into her seat. "Whatever, your prerogative. Don't bother me any." It didn't really matter to her either way, now did it? She didn't even know where they were going – she'd just get them lost, add another four hours to their journey, or maybe more. Any snappy comebacks she'd made every time Erik made a comment about how long it had taken her to prepare to leave would have seemed far, far away if she did something to make him legitimately angry – she didn't want to see him anything more than irritated, not if she was on the receiving end of his wrath.


	2. Chapter Two

**And here's chapter two. Any conversation from the movie is done purely from memory, so forgive me if it's horribly, horribly wrong. I can only hope this chapter came out well, because I know there are more than a few places where I ended up getting too wordy.**

**As stated last time, I'm going to ask for five reviews in exchange for a new chapter, because while I'm getting views, I'm not getting feedback - and feedback is going to be a huge help, in the long run. I need to know where the readers would like to see this go, what you guys think can be improved on, that sort of thing... And I really don't think five reviews is much to ask, do you?**

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><p>Shiloh had been at this goddamned CIA base for two days now, and only just now was something exciting happening.<p>

She used the word 'exciting' loosely.

Currently, she and the other mutants – sans Charles and Erik – were scouring the base for junk food and bottles of Coke, planning on hauling them into a room they'd designated the 'game room' (thanks to the presence of a single pinball machine – it was a helluva lot more than the other rooms had) for a bit of an impromptu party. It was closer to her idea of fun than clubbing, like Raven had suggested; it may have been a bit _bland_, but Shiloh didn't even _own_ 'club' clothing (and she wasn't about to borrow some of Raven's clothes – they may have been roughly the same height, but Raven was _definitely _curvier). Clubbing was more for girls like Raven and Angel anyways – the girls who either _had _the confidence or had the ability to fake it, the girls who _liked _getting all dolled up, the ones who could thrive on human interaction.

Human nature aside, Shiloh was not a particularly social creature.

Their pathetic little shindig had actually managed to go on for something like an hour before they all found themselves perched in chairs and on table edges, spread around the room and actually _talking _(Shiloh is pretty sure she's only surprised by that because back home, her and her friends were more into either spending all their time causing trouble or sitting in the room reading who knows what). It starts out as idle chit-chat, people talking about how weird it is to be here, how different it is from before, things like that, and progressed into talk of powers and code names. She's not sure she wants them to know hers – not both of them, anyways – but she figures it's better if she's completely honest. It makes sense, right? They're all on the same side; it would be a strictly need to know thing. Nobody outside of this room (and, well, Charles and Erik, surely) would ever have to know a thing.

"We're government agents now; we should have secret code names. I want to be called Mystique." Raven said with a grin.

"Damn, _I_ wanted to be called Mystique," Sean said with a roll of his eyes, eyeing Raven as he took a drink.

"Well tough, _I_ called it," Raven stated before she transformed into a perfect copy of Sean in a flurry of blue, leaving the rest of the people in the room to look both confused and amazed. "Besides, I'm _way _more mysterious than you." Still shifted, Raven continued to stare at the real Sean, who looked quite scared, for a moment longer before she shifted back, the same strange rush of blue crossing her skin. "What about you?"

Sean looked vaguely put out for a moment, as though he was both expecting her to change back into him and truly irritated with her having claimed the name 'Mystique'. "I wanna be… Banshee."

Shiloh's brows rose and she snorted. "You wanna be named called '_Banshee_'?" She'd grown up reading stories about things like that – banshees and brownies and boggarts and other strange things – because she'd had a babysitter who was heavily into the myths, something about her family being really involved in the occult or something like that (she didn't remember clearly, she'd been fairly young when she'd had that babysitter, and not much older when that babysitter had left). Personally, the brunette thought they were a load of shit.

"Why do you want to be named after a wailing spirit?" Hank queried.

Sean had the decency to smile sheepishly. "You might wanna cover your ears." He waited until everyone had done so before, Shiloh assumed, attempting to direct his shriek at the glasses on the table, only to miss entirely and hit the large window on the other side of the room. Everyone laughed.

"My stage name is Angel… It kind of fits," Angel stated when she was singled out. She stood and removed her jacket, revealing her wings.

"You can fly?" Raven gasped out at the same time that Shiloh managed to spit out "You have _wings_?"

"Uh-huh. There's also this…" Angel turned and spit at the statue outside – an acidic hiss was clearly audible, even from this distance. The laughter started up once again – it seemed the statue was the unofficial target of the night.

Eager to avoid the attention for a bit longer once the laughter had died down, Shiloh grinned. "'ey, Darwin, how 'bout you?"

"Well, Darwin's already a nickname… And it fits: 'adapt to survive', and all… Check this." Everyone watched as he approached the fish tank, bending just enough to plunge his head into the water. Gills formed on the side of his neck almost immediately, allowing him to breath underwater.

Shiloh couldn't honestly say that, whatever she had been expecting, _that_ was _not _it. However, it was pretty neat – and she had to admit that she was a bit jealous, because that was a mutation that _had _to come in handy more often than not.

As Darwin pulled his head from the tank and shook away the water, he turned his attention to the group. "What's your name?" He directed at Hank, who looked a little bit uncomfortable with the situation.

"How about 'Bigfoot'?" Alex suggested, half-joking, half-serious.

"Well, you know what they say about men with big feet," Raven jumped in, glaring at Alex as Hank looked away. "And yours are kinda small."

Shiloh cracked a grin, shaking her head at the irritated look on Alex's face. He'd had that one coming. "Okay, okay, breakin' up the tension here –" She'd hoped to be able to throw someone up to bat, so to speak, but never got a chance, because next Raven was asking her about her power. She almost winced as she stood. "Well, I don't' know 'bout a name that doesn't make me sound like dog, but I can, uh, create and control electricity," she explained, holding up a hand and snapping a couple of times, willing the electricity to her fingertips to arc and crackle. I'm also, a, uh… Low-level empath."

Sean looked confused by the word 'empath' – she wasn't surprised. However, she didn't have the chance to explain, because Hank had already jumped in to do so.

"She can sense, possibly _feel_ our emotions." Hank explains, and she's fairly certain about as much as he knows how to dumb things down, and he'd even seemed to have some difficulty with that (which isn't even close to shocking, as Hank is nothing short of incredibly brilliant, if equally as socially awkward).

When Sean looks to her a moment later like he's asking for confirmation, she nods. "I only really get, uh, bits and pieces, y'know? I don't really feel it – or, I haven't, anyways – but I can kind of… See it. Like each feeling is a colour, sorta, and varyin' degrees of emotions and similar emotions are just different shades of the same colour, if that makes any sense at all." She notices that Sean doesn't look like the subject is any clearer to him, but he nods regardless, so she doesn't continue explaining and sits back down. She isn't sure how much more clearly she could explain that without a drawing – and she's awful at drawing. "I guess I could go with, with... Synergy. I mean, sorta covers everything, I guess."

Raven nodded at her, and then it's quiet for a little bit before Darwin asks, "What is your gift, Alex?"

"I can't. I can't do it," Alex said, frowning, "Not here."

"Could you do it outside?" Darwin asked, motioning towards the destroyed window. "Come on!"

"Yeah, c'mon!" Shiloh and Sean chip in simultaneously.

After a bit more heckling, Alex reluctantly agrees to show off his abilities, standing, stepping over the glass and disappearing to the right of the window. "Get down when I tell you." He waits until everyone agrees and he sees them peering around the corner. Clearly, he resists the urge to roll his eyes. "Get back," he orders.

They obey, but only briefly. They're all practically falling over each other, trying to peer around the corner and see his power.

"Whatever."

As they watched, Alex began to shift his body, discs of energy appearing around his body, all turning at different angles. When he stopped and thrust his chest forward, the rings left his body, flying forward to destroy several parts of the area outside, the most noteworthy slicing the statue in half.

Shiloh grinned and let out a sharp whistle, impressed. "That was hardcore, man."

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><p>From there, the 'party' had escalated fairly quickly. Where it had dragged on from the start, the lot of them trying to make small talk, now they had all split off into little groups: Angel and Raven were off to one side dancing, Darwin and Alex were playing pinball (or, rather, Alex was kicking Darwin's ass at pinball), and Sean openly eyeing Angel and Raven between snippets of laughter-riddled conversation with Hank and Shiloh.<p>

"Sean, you could at least _try _to be discreet 'bout your starin'," Shiloh said, snorting when Sean turned back to her with a frown. "If you stare at 'em like a creep, you don't have a chance, man." Sean just makes a noncommittal noise before returning to dividing his attention evenly between paying attention to the conversation and staring like, well, a creep. In fact, Shiloh's pretty sure he's now going out of his way to make his leering _more _obvious, just to spite her. While she knows some girls from back home wouldn't mind in the least (they'd be glad for the attention and glad they didn't have to decipher any vague signals), most of them would probably start a fight with Sean over this.

Most of her female friends are from what her parents call 'the wrong side of the tracks'. They're less catty, but twice as likely get physical if you start something; she figures it's a fair enough trade. It's not like she has a lot of female friends - about six, tops, and four of them are from the bad end of town.

"Boys," she eventually says with a roll of her eyes, turning her attention to Hank and giving him a wide grin to assure him that she _was_, in fact, listening to him, and she was _not _under the impression that she fell into the same category as Sean. As she opened her mouth to speak again, she paused, frowned, and cast a quick glance around. She was fairly certain that she'd heard _something_, she just wasn't sure _what_. "You guys hear that?" When she was met with silence, her frown deepened. She was half-convinced that she'd just been hearing things until she heard it again: a faint sound like she'd always envisioned accompanying a puff of smoke in a magician's act. "There, _that_! Y'hear it now?"

Darwin nodded. "Yeah, yeah, I hear it."

For a long, almost uncomfortable moment, it was completely silent, before they could hear the same sound just outside the window. She wasn't sure _what _it was, but she was damn sure she didn't like it, because it was making her nervous. From there, everything went to hell in a damned hand basket. It turned out that they had been tracked down by a mutant named Sebastian Shaw and his rag-tag band of _batshit crazy _mutants. He preached about humans being inferior, about wanting to claim the mutants' rightful place at the top of the world, so to speak. It should have been easy to guess, from the way he'd had his teleporter bouncing around, dropping humans from insane heights to explode on the ground below (and oh, had they ever _exploded _- it was _awful_).

"Or you can join me and live like kings... And queens."

That last line seemed to be all the incentive Angel needed to join the man who'd just had several dozen innocent people killed (they may have been assholes, but that didn't warrant their deaths, did it?).

"Angel!" Raven gasped, frowning.

"Are you kiddin' me?" Sean seemed the most shocked by it - but that may have just been that he hadn't been struck dumb by what had just happened.

For a moment, Angel looked torn, frowning at the group that she'd been friends with only moments go. "Come on, we don't belong here." She sighed. "And that's _nothing _to be ashamed of."

Silence settled over the group, a silence that Raven quickly broke. "We have to do something."

"Far as I'm concerned," Shiloh said, eyeing Angel with disgust evident in her tone, "she wants to go with the asshole in the suit, it's her call."

In front of her, there was a brief scuffle between Alex and Darwin, before Darwin moved to follow Shaw and his gang through the broken window. "Stop. I'm comin' with you."

Shaw looked thrilled when he turned around. "Good choice. So, tell me about your mutation."

"I adapt to survive," Darwin said, cracking a smile. "So, I guess I'm comin' with you."

"I like that."

The moment Darwin was near enough to Angel, he pulled her close to him. "Alex!"

Alex rushed forward. "Get out!"

"Do it!"

Though every bit of her brain told her not to listen, to offer aid, Shiloh did as told, rushing out of the way of Alex's power. _So, that's what that fight was about_. She just hoped the plan they clearly had worked, because otherwise... Somebody's ass was grass, and she really hoped it wasn't any of theirs... But clearly, everything wasn't going to go according to plan. When she moved again, looked up, she saw that Shaw seemed to have absorb the energy from Alex's attack. _Fuck_.

"Protecting your fellow mutants? That's a noble gesture. Feels good." Shaw commented with a sick smile. As he finished speaking, he turned to Darwin, taking his chin in his hand and holding up the other. In it, Shiloh could see a ball of glowing red energy, which was pushed past Darwin's lips not a moment later. "Adapt to this." The group could only watch in horror as Darwin shifted through several forms, attempting to adapt to the large amount of energy. Before he finally disintegrated, he looked towards Alex, as if trying to convey how much he didn't want him to blame himself for this.

Shiloh slapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide. Honestly, she'd seen a lot in her life, but she'd never watched somebody die, let alone someone she had absolutely no chance of saving. She wasn't sure if she wanted to cry or deteriorate straight into hysterical laughter - maybe she'd end up skipping both of those things altogether and go straight to vomiting. This was just too much for her to handle. If she'd known what was in store when she'd agreed to go with Charles and Erik... Well, honestly, she probably still would have gone; she just would have had more time to prepare, find a way to save Darwin.

"Oh, god." The worst part of this was her empathic abilities - she could see the fear, the sorrow, the anger, she could read the sickness on all of them. Alex was the worst: there was clearly a part of him that completely blamed himself for Darwin's death, something he couldn't have stopped, not if they'd wanted a chance at getting Angel back. Darwin had known that, he had to have. For a moment, Shiloh had to shut her eyes, take a few deep breaths - it was almost overwhelming sensing what they felt, even more so when it mixed with her own emotions.

God, were they ever in for a long night.

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><p>The rest of their night was spent waiting, huddled together and mourning Darwin. She knew the others had drifted off at some point, but she'd ended up with her knees pulled to her chest, staring up at the sky; despite all her trying, she hadn't been able to sleep, so when the morning came, she was glad for the large sunglasses she had to perch on her face, hiding the dark circles that were bound to be present under her eyes.<p>

"We've made arrangements for you to be taken home immediately."

Shiloh's head jerked up. Home. It'd barely been a week that she'd been away, and so much had happened. She couldn't go back under these circumstances, couldn't let her parents know about the danger.

"We're not goin' home," Sean stated simply. "_He__'s _not going back to prison."

"He killed Darwin!" Alex said in an attempt to back Sean's statement up.

"All the more reason for you to leave. This is over."

Raven shook her head. "Darwin's _dead_, Charles. And we can't even bury him."

Shiloh frowned, attempting to settle more into her seat between Alex and Sean. She was too tired for this argument, too tired to hear about death again; she needed a good night's rest before this was something she wanted to deal with.

"We can avenge him."

"Erik, a word, please."

The teens watched as the older mutants conversed in hushed tones. "If he seriously thought we were goin' home, your brother ain't half as smart as I gave him credit for, Raven," Shiloh said lightly, a weak attempt at lightening the mood.

"We'll have to train," Charles stated as he and Erik returned to the group, "all of us. Yes?"

"Yeah!" Shiloh and Alex said at the same time, prompting the girl to nudge the blond in the ribs with a half smile.

"Well, we can't stay here," Hank interjected with a frown. "Even if they re-open the department, it's not safe. We've got nowhere to go."

Charles almost smiled. "Yes, we do."


End file.
